Ego Functions Research Articles

A Comparative Study of the Personality Formulates of Ghazali and Freud

This research is a comparative study of the types of nafs and the types of personality described by Ghazali and Freud, respectively. Types of personality described by Ghazali are al-nafs al-ammara, al-nafs al-lawwama and al-nafs al-mutma'inna. The types of personality according to Freud are id, ego and super-ego. Other faculties that help in training or shaping the types of nafs are rooh (soul), qalb (heart), and aql (mind). They also play a vital role in the functioning of id, ego and super-ego. 
 This article defines the above mentioned types of personality presented by both Ghazali and Freud. It also discusses their functions encompassing their differences and similarities and strives to find out if they complement each other. It was found that there is much similarity in both types of personality formulates. Id and nafs ammarah are the same, while nafs lawwama was found to be comprising both ego and super-ego. However, the concept of nafs mutma’innah is found only in Islamic theology.
 Thematic and comparative study methods of qualitative research were used in this research. This is a literature based study. Ghazali’s study is based on the Qur’an and Sunnah. Hence, Ihya’ ‘Uloom-id-Deen and The Ego and The ID remain the major sources of this study.

Return of the Repressed: Revisiting Dissociation and the Psychoanalysis of the Traumatized Mind.

Psychoanalytic treatment is often indicated when trauma and its psyche/soma companion, dissociation, severely disrupt symbolic functioning and associative linking. After Freud's initial thinking on these matters, repression replaced rather than supplemented dissociation (which occasions segregating units of experience) as the primary defensive response to severe trauma. Because psychoanalysis had "repressed" the salience of dissociation as actively motivated (though passively experienced), an unnecessary schism has occurred between trauma theories and mainstream North American psychoanalysis, and within psychoanalysis itself. To fully restore dissociation's role in primitive mental states and provide a more integrated approach to technique, it is necessary to comprehend the triadic nature of trauma, which entails economic/drive, structural conflict and deficit, and object-relational factors. For a treatment model that addresses defensive dissociation in the here and now, primary and secondary dissociation must be distinguished, with each differentiated from splitting and repression. Technique requires addressing unconscious, repressed fantasies associated with the "trauma," object-relational patterns that interfere with linking, and psycho-economic issues that have disrupted ego functioning. A clinical example illustrates both the analyst's persistence in suffering the dead, eerie space of dissociated trauma and efforts to find language that helps structure the patient's somatic and enacted expressions (and accompanying dissociative and repressive processes) by which traumatic experiences are registered and conveyed.

Psychological characteristics of the types of the experience of loneliness functional orientation

The article is devoted to the study of the "ego function" features of persons with different functional loneliness orientations. It discusses the views of scientists on the definition of the concepts of loneliness, and ideas about the functions of the ego, are included in the framework of the human model of personality by G. Ammon. The results of an empirical study aimed at determining the features of self-functions of individuals with different functional orientations of loneliness are stated. The bonds between the indicators of ego functions such as aggression, anxiety, internal and external selflimitations, narcissism, sexuality; and the types of functional loneliness orientation are established. Groups of creative, adaptive and self-destructive experiences of loneliness are defined. It has been established that groups of individuals with a different loneliness experience are distinguished by the specifics of the manifestation of ego functions (constructive, destructive, deficit). A descriptive characteristic of the ego-functional profiles of individuals with different experience types of loneliness orientation are presented, and their psychological portraits are compiled. It has been proven that people having creative types of loneliness experiences are inherently more sociable, empathetic, open, able to constructively overcome difficulties and interpersonal conflicts, have higher self-esteem, are more ambitious, realistic in their perception of themselves and others, emotionally and spiritually mature, and able to express feelings and emotional experiences. Persons with an adaptive type of loneliness experience are characterized by control of interpersonal distance, rational use of available resources, difficulties in setting and upholding personally significant goals, inconsistency of emotional experience, instability concerning oneself, emotional depreciation of important events and significant relationships, blocking activities; and feelings of fatigue, boredom and emotional emptiness. Persons with a self-destructive type of loneliness experience are characterized by between the person’s inner world and his social environment, resulting in increased mental stress, fear of the future, anxiety, uncertainty, dissatisfaction with life.

Supportive Psychotherapy

Supportive Psychotherapy

The Cultural Underpinnings of Subjectivity and Inter-Subjectivity: A Discussion of “Trump Cards and Klein Bottles: On the Collective of the Individual”

In “Trump Cards and Klein Bottles: On the Collective of the Individual,” Dr. González (this issue) argues for the centrality of dynamic and shifting group identifications in shaping our subjectivity and our inter-subjective linking from moment to moment. My commentary about this paper is organized around the themes of cultural dislocation and cultural displacement, experiences related to large-group identifications and identity. These constructs, cultural dislocation and displacement, can deepen our understanding of how inter/intra-group tensions (historic and current) can play a determinative role in shaping individual subjectivity and inter-subjective linking. They complement and amplify claims regarding the centrality of our group identifications on ego functions. They also point toward the determinative impact of context and clashing cultural systems on our object relations and unconscious fantasies. Studying the links between individuals, collectives, and the cultural systems that structure them will deepen our theories and extend our relevance.

Gestalt Psychotherapy and Coaching for Relationships

Gestalt Psychotherapy and Coaching for Relationships

The Relationships between Children’s Ego Function and Fear of Negative Evaluation Affecting Academic Failure Tolerance in Early School Age: Analysis by Grade Level Considering Sustainability of Academic Motivation

This study identified the relational paths between children’s ego function and fear of negative evaluation affecting academic failure tolerance across three grades. The ego function consisted of four factors: competence, initiative, resilience, and sociality. In total, data of 872 elementary school students (Grade 1–3) in South Korea were collected through parent-reported questionnaires. Results reflected various paths between these variables. Firstly, in all three grades, greater initiative and resilience and less fear of negative evaluation resulted in higher tolerance for academic failure. In particular, fear of negative evaluation was found to fully mediate the effect of academic failure tolerance on resilience. Secondly, notable differences in paths were found among grade levels. For first grade students, competence lowered the fear of negative evaluation and academic failure tolerance. For second grade students, initiative had an indirect effect on academic failure tolerance through fear of negative evaluation. For third grade students, sociality lowered the fear of negative assessment and increased academic failure tolerance. Fear of negative evaluation partially mediated the relationship between first graders’ competence, second graders’ initiative, and third graders’ sociality and academic failure tolerance. Conclusively, children’s ego function is an important factor affecting academic failure tolerance, and the fear of negative evaluation mediates the relationship between the two variables. The four factors of ego have been found to have a different impact on each grade level. In consideration of effectiveness and sustainability, viable methods of psychological intervention to improve children’s academic motivation, specifically created to meet the needs of children at each grade level, are necessary. This study is meaningful in that it provides applicable results for sustainability-based psychological interventions to improve children’s academic failure tolerance.

The Role of Gender and Income Level in the Relationship Between Ego Functions and Resilience

This study is a research conducted in the relational screening model aiming to examine the intermediary role of gender and income in the relationship between ego functions and resilience. The research was conducted with 251 participants who volunteered to participate among fourth-graders attending different undergraduate programs of a university. 49.8% of the participants were female, and 50.2% were male; the mean age was 23.6 years. The Resilience Scale for Adults and Ego Functions Assessment Scale were used as data collection tools in the research. Descriptive statistics, Pearson Correlation Coefficient and Multiple Regression Analysis were used in the analysis of data. Consequently, while resilience did not differ significantly in terms of gender, evaluating the truth from ego functions were found higher in men, and stimulant threshold and judgment were found to be higher in women. While it was determined that ego functions predicted resilience at a significant level, the intermediary role of gender and income level was not found in the relationship between ego functions and resilience. Consequently, it may be useful to consider ego functions as a variable in improving the resilience of young individuals.

The Function of Symbol‐Formation: Pinning Down the Ego Function

This paper follows my previous paper in the Journal in 2018, which examined Hanna Segal's theory of symbol‐formation and the various modifications she made to it. In this paper it is argued that the specific functions involved in symbol‐formation need to be examined for which fails. To use one thing (a symbol) to represent another requires a kind of suspension of reality; to take one thing as if it were really another underpins the capacity to represent. And yet it does not invalidate the knowledge that the symbol has a separate existence of its own. There is a double relation to the symbol – which is a mark on a piece of paper, and is also the thing it represents. I have termed this the ‘as‐if’ function that is needed in order to use symbols and representations. It is also the precise location of failure in symbolic equations, where the as‐if quality breaks down into a simple mistaken identity of the symbol with its referent. This addition to Freud's list of ego‐function involved in the reality principle is crucial to the development of representation, and ultimately of the capacity for civilization.

Clinical Practice Guidelines for Practice of Supportive Psychotherapy.

Clinical Practice Guidelines for Practice of Supportive Psychotherapy.

“When a Patient Is Unable to Work in the Transference”: Dr. Lament’s Response

ABSTRACT This piece addresses a prominent question that arose from the author’s presentation of her paper, “Turning Points in Adolescent Analysis”. Specifically, the adolescent patient who was the subject of the paper was unable to work within the transference relationship, despite the author/analyst’s pursuit of this feature of their exchange. Reasons for the patient’s inability to do this are discussed, including the patient’s neuropsychological challenges and ADHD and their impact on psychic structure formation and her concrete-ism. More useful to the patient were mirroring transference interventions as well as those which capitalized on assisting the development of inchoate ego structures and functions; and aiding the transformational pull forward into young adulthood. A child and adolescent analyst (as well as an analyst of adult patients) must choose arrows from her quiver of therapeutic action based upon which ones the patient is capable of using, and which ones target the nature and symptoms of the patient’s disturbance which prevent her from using the transference relationship. The author draws from Anna Freud as well as contemporary thinkers on this topic.

White cyber-protest in a Facebook group

Abstract This study builds upon a nascent body of scholarship that examines the transnational movement of White Westerners. The purpose is to complicate the literature on multiculturalism and globalization by examining the “reverse” migration from, rather than to, the West. Specifically, it examines White migrants’ mobilization of online social protest through a Facebook group that came together in response to a report broadcast on South Korea’s Munhwa Broadcasting Company (MBC) that was interpreted as racist and xenophobic. In response, White residents in Korea organized dissent and engaged in symbolic protest that served a collective ego function, creating community around a perceived sense of shared oppression as racialized minorities. To do so, they drew on global hierarchies, White supremacy, and heteronormativity to challenge their lack of control over their own representations in the local culture.

Strengthening the Healthy Adult Self in Art Therapy: Using Schema Therapy as a Positive Psychological Intervention for People Diagnosed With Personality Disorders.

This article reviews recent theoretical contributions and studies about art therapy that attempt to capture aspects of healthy ego functioning and presents an inventory of art therapy interventions to strengthen the Healthy Adult. It discusses how art therapy can offer interventions that focus specifically and directly on the integration and growth of the whole person, and which interventions are suitable for this purpose in the treatment of people diagnosed with severe personality disorders. A link is made between the Healthy Adult as a familiar concept from Schema Therapy, and Positive Psychology, with its focus on well-being, strength and positive affect. On the basis of our present knowledge, available studies and experiences, art therapy seems promising in contributing to the development of Healthy Adult functioning. Art therapy addresses the different areas of healthy adult functioning. Specific art therapy interventions are discussed on a concrete level. Art therapy appears to offer ways to strengthen the Healthy Adult and helps people to free themselves from destructive patterns and to work on satisfying their basic needs as independent and responsibly functioning individuals in a positive connectedness with themselves and their surroundings. The strength of art therapy may be the experiential level and the appeal to the capacity to play, to flexibility, and to be creative. This makes experiences easier to reach, and developing from there into a Healthy Adult mode is possible in a manner that is more felt than thought. Creativity can be regarded as the ability of the Healthy Adult to be flexible and to find different solutions to a problem. This appeal of art therapy fits well the therapeutic goal of empowerment and well-being, which is at the heart of positive psychology. More research is needed to verify the effects and working mechanisms of art therapy interventions.

Study of validity, reliability in accordance with Turkey conditions in ego functions assessment scale.

The aim of the study is to conduct a reliability and validity study of the Ego Function Assessment (EFA) scale. The study was conducted with a total of 426 participants, which included 213 patients with schizophrenia and a control group of 213 normal individuals. The Individual Information Form, EFA Scale, Wonderlic Personnel Test, Adjective Check List, and Symptom Check List were used for data collection. All the statistical procedures performed in the validity and reliability stages of the study show that the scale is a valid, reliable measurement tool for the Turkish culture. In psychiatric nursing, the use of the EFA scale can be recommended for planning individual patient care, which involves the assessment of a patient's functional adjustment on the basis of their own ego profile.

Touch Me, But Don’t Get Under My Skin: The Skin-Ego and the Conflicting Needs for Connection and Protection

This paper is inspired by Anzieu’s concept of the “skin-ego” as a psychic agency distinguished by a set of ego functions that are symbolic representations of the three main physiological functions of the skin: a primary mode of communication with others, a protective barrier from the external world, and a container of internal organs. The author suggests skin-ego configurations along three qualitative dimensions: sensitivity, permeability, and elasticity. As the imaginary space in which fantasies, dreams, thoughts, and psychopathological formations are established, the skin-ego affects how one negotiates subjectivity and intersubjectivity. The author presents two patients whose skin-ego functions were compromised by early trauma to illustrate how their skin-ego characteristics shape the way they negotiate their contradictory, coexisting needs to connect with others and to protect against the other’s potential impingements. The implications of skin-ego functions to the therapeutic process, as well as the therapist’s skin-ego functions, are also discussed.

Школа психологии религии в университете Дерпта. К вопросу об изучении религии в Российской империи в начале XX в.

The article deals with the consecration of the basic ideas of the Dorpat school of religious psychology. The main attention is focused on Karl Girgensohn and his experimental method of studying religiousness, in particular religious experience. The main methodological basis of the school is shown. The article also reflects the interaction of the Dorpat and Würzburg schools of religious psychology, which influenced the ideas of Oswald Külpe. The main conclusions reached by Girgensohn during his research were, on the one hand, that the leading structural element of religious experience was intuitive thinking, which, unlike discursive thinking, is less formulated and is associated not so much with logic as with feelings of pleasure and dissatisfaction, as with symbols. In addition, Girgensohn singled out the so-called “ego functions” associated with intuitive thoughts in religious experience. Faced with a new set of ideas, the ego first reacts intellectually, using its existing stock of principles. In addition to the characteristic of the method, the attitude to the method developed by Oswald Külpe and developed by Carl Girgensohn is also shown. Among the researchers there were both supporters of experimental introspection, such as Otto Rithschle, and the critic of this technique in the person of Oscar Pfischer, Anna Tumarkin and others. The last part gives a brief review of the gradual sunset of the Dorpat school.

DZIECKO i DOROSŁY w relacji - o rozwoju i stanach JA

The article is a review of the theories connected with psychoanalysis concerning the development of EGO in the internal psychological and relational aspects. The main concepts are presented - from classical Z. Freud to the modern thought of ISTDP. The importance of early childhood experiences for the functioning of EGO in adulthood was shown. The complexity of the problem is shown due to the internalized objects in the EGO-structure or the presence of Child-Parent-Adult states in it. The discussed theories indicate how much knowledge about the states, structure and process of development, including in relation to EGO from childhood to adulthood, was evaluated.

Acupuncture versus Western medicine drugs (antidepressant) to treat depression

The aim of the study is to assess the beneficial effects of acupuncture compared with Western medicine in treating patientswith depression. Depression is a serious psychiatric illness that involves symptoms such as depressed or sad mood, loss ofinterest or pleasure in activities, changes in weight, difficult sleep or oversleeping, energy loss, feelings of worthlessness, psychomotorchanges, and thoughts of death or suicide. Acupuncture and Western medicine have been widely used to treat the patient with depression. The following electronic databases were searched: The Cochrane Central Register for Controlled Trials (Central),MEDLINE, EMBASE, AMED, PsycINFO, and PUBMED. The summary of this report was evaluated by using the Preferred Reporting Itemsfor Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis Checklist. Sixty-four journals on acupuncture, Western medicine drugs (antidepressant),and containing both in treating depression were identified and included in this review. In term of Western medicine, antidepressant may helpthe ego function in short term, and for long-term using, it may cause the patient to become addictive toward the drug. Acupuncture is relativelysafe to use and proven significantly effective to treat the depression and less side effect for long term used by the patient. Currentevidence from this summary literature review shows that acupuncture and Western medicine (antidepressant) drugs can treat depression. However, acupuncture therapies almost give none of side effect compared to antidepressant, and every patient with depression can try acupuncture notexcluding the pregnant woman.

심리치료에서 명상의 적용 범위

There has been an increase in the application of meditation to psychotherapy based on research showing that mindfulness meditation helped people improve their mental health and wellbeing as well as change their brain functions. Researchers in Korea have reported that meditation positively influenced clients with diverse psychological problems. However, a few researchers have warned us that meditation could be causing latent psychiatric problems or neurosis in clients with vulnerable ego function. Some of the psychological disorders, called majang, have also been presented in Buddhism literature. If psychotherapists want to apply meditation in psychotherapy, they should be understanding of its positive and negative effects. This study, therefore, examines not only the benefits of meditation, but also its side effects based on psychiatric studies in Western and Buddhism literature. Furthermore, this study examines the adverse effects of meditation and effective solutions to counter these adverse effects through Buddhism studies. Finally, there are different points of view as well as common factors of healing between psychotherapy and meditation. This study suggests that clinical therapists should be aware of some of the different views about the application of mediation in psychotherapy.

Gender differences in sexuality Ego-functioning in patients with epilepsy

Objective: to study the gender features of sexuality as one of the structural central ego functions in patients with epilepsy.Patients and methods. The investigation was conducted on a sample of 102 people, by using the Ego Structure Test described by G. Ammon (Ich-Struktur-Test nach Ammon (ISTA), 1997).Results and discussion. This study showed that female patients with epilepsy had a more severity of destructive and deficient components of ego functions, such as aggression, fear, outer and inner ego demarcation, narcissism; sexual deficit as compared to normative data. The same was often noted at a statistically significant level in comparison with other study groups.Conclusion. The impairment of all core functions in female patients with epilepsy leads to the impossible realization of mature sexuality.